Moa, the creator of hatoful boyfriend is playing it right now
Moa also did a youtube translation of undertale, and was one of the main people who got the ball rolling on its popularity in japan
Moa also did a youtube translation of undertale, and was one of the main people who got the ball rolling on its popularity in japan
Me: just started Persona 5 and boy things are getting kinda heavy, I should take a break.
Internet: Play Doki Doki, it's only like 4 hours long.
Me: *Sees it's free on steam and works on mac* Ok I'll give this a shot tonight.
–4 Hours later–
Me:..."Why are we still here? Just to suffer?"
Internet: Play Doki Doki, it's only like 4 hours long.
Me: *Sees it's free on steam and works on mac* Ok I'll give this a shot tonight.
–4 Hours later–
Me:..."Why are we still here? Just to suffer?"
I played through this this week. Took a break from The House in Fata Morgana to do so -- I sure am picking some nice, happy games lately, huh?
I sorta knew that shit got weird at the end because I only learned about the game by tuning in to a streamer who was already at the Monika end. But even so, getting to experience the mid game where things start getting weird was completely awesome.
I might try for the "good end" at some point since I've really only seen the Yuri route so far, but I'm definitely satisfied with my first playthrough. Great game!
I sorta knew that shit got weird at the end because I only learned about the game by tuning in to a streamer who was already at the Monika end. But even so, getting to experience the mid game where things start getting weird was completely awesome.
I loved the "game corruption" elements like the garbled script and the sour notes in the bgm. It really led nicely into the big meta-reveal at the end. And the game subverting your expectations by destroying saved games definitely took me by surprise.
I might try for the "good end" at some point since I've really only seen the Yuri route so far, but I'm definitely satisfied with my first playthrough. Great game!
So...I don't want to get spoiled too hard, but I'm wondering if this game has anything heavily inappropriate for my 15-year-old daughter.
Thanks in advance!
We like to play narrative horror games up to and including silent hill and amnesia. We also watch a lot of horror movies, but if there is a heavy emphasis on sexual violence, then it probably isn't great for us
Thanks in advance!
There is definitely some disturbing stuff in it, but I don't think there is anything sexual in it if I'm remembering right. If y'all can handle general horror movies/games, I think it's fine.
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No sexual violence IIRC.
There's a single line where a character talks about touching herself. No elaboration and never mentioned again.
Thanks y'all. Sounds like we might give it a try.
The biggest danger is her getting addicted to these types of games, which many of the "greats" aren't for anyone under 18.
Somebody wrote a content warning / trigger warning list for Doki Doki, which you might find useful:
It is of course somewhat spoilery by nature, but it does not contain any specifics. And note that the second to last entry is not referring to
sexual abuse.
I can't sleep and I'm stuck at some part that is the second ending and I'm afraid to go back to my room and face my desktop. Holy shit.
EDIT: I was able to finish it. I got stuck in the ending with Yuri where she stabs herself and I was scared shitless to keep going. Managed to kill Monika by deleting her. This game is fucked up. And brilliant.
EDIT: I was able to finish it. I got stuck in the ending with Yuri where she stabs herself and I was scared shitless to keep going. Managed to kill Monika by deleting her. This game is fucked up. And brilliant.
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Miranda and Marty were praising this game on the last Beyond! podcast and brought me to this game and I was completely in the dark. Brilliant, brutal and disturbing. I equally thank them and curse at them. I don't think I'll be able to sleep anytime soon. :(
With both Pewdiepie and Jacksepticeye playing this, I'm thinking this will reach 1 million downloads pretty soon.
I installed it. Its in my laptop now....waiting....telling me to play with it.
I'm freaking terrified though. Which is weird since I'm no longer phased with horror elements nearly as much as before.
But this game...
I'm freaking terrified though. Which is weird since I'm no longer phased with horror elements nearly as much as before.
But this game...
I watched someone play through this, and it's probably something I'm never going to watch/play again even though I liked it. I do have some thoughts on it and I don't really have anyone to share it with so I guess I'll just post it here!
The first death really got to me. Since the game was played straight up until that point. I knew some bad stuff was going to go down eventually, but I didn't know in what form. I have pretty severe depression myself, so when she discussed her depression it felt so... familiar to me it hurt. Then only a few minutes later having that happen was kind of difficult for me.
After that I felt the game got kind of silly and over the top? I enjoyed it, but there weren't any more moments like that. What I kind of would have liked to see is just having her deleted from the game and then the game just going back to being played straight again. No comment about what just happened and why no one is reacting to her death. Then continue on and do the same for the other girls until only Monika is left.
Another thing I kind of wish it did is once Monika is deleted from the game and the game goes back to normal, to just have it be a normal game from then on. No call backs or references to what happened. Again, just playing it straight. Have the initial game be wiped out and being replaced by a perfectly normal otherwise unremarkable VN. I don't know, probably doing it more like what I have in mind wouldn't have made it as notable, as it's probably a bit too subtly creepy? I do still think it's a good game as it is.
After that I felt the game got kind of silly and over the top? I enjoyed it, but there weren't any more moments like that. What I kind of would have liked to see is just having her deleted from the game and then the game just going back to being played straight again. No comment about what just happened and why no one is reacting to her death. Then continue on and do the same for the other girls until only Monika is left.
Another thing I kind of wish it did is once Monika is deleted from the game and the game goes back to normal, to just have it be a normal game from then on. No call backs or references to what happened. Again, just playing it straight. Have the initial game be wiped out and being replaced by a perfectly normal otherwise unremarkable VN. I don't know, probably doing it more like what I have in mind wouldn't have made it as notable, as it's probably a bit too subtly creepy? I do still think it's a good game as it is.
We're here for you buddy.
Yes. Yes, please tell us all about it.
It was a sad experience for me. I wish there was a...
real happy ending, like something to unlock or to discover. It left me with bitter taste in the mouth.
I honestly never play VNs, especially not romance ones, but I've been branching out recently, getting into Danganronpa and trying Ace Attorney. When the Game Grumps started playing this last week and people kept alluding to weird stuff happening, I decided to check it out for myself.
and now my life is ruined, so thanks
and now my life is ruined, so thanks
My initial reaction from the Grumps thread:
Man, that content warning was not playing around. When I saw that image my stomach churned. I think it hurt more because I was actually starting to like the cast a bit, and I was so relieved after the pump fake when you visit her before meeting with Yuri. It just fucked me up more than I expected.
Then I started a "New Game" and saw the mess that awaited me. It was too much to handle at almost 3 in the morning (which it is again), so I decided to close the game and skim the Rock Paper Shotgun article linked in the Steam library page and saw something about file altering. I immediately stopped reading and rushed to see the contents of the game folder...
My mind was blown to fucking smithereens. That shit was WAY beyond my maximum fuckery limit for the day, so I promptly went the fuck to bed and tried to think of anything and everything but that until I could fall asleep. Today I tried to put on a brave face and returned to the game. I only barely made it past the 2nd "END." I'm honestly still too spooked to go much further, but I am compelled to see this experience through, becuase it is one hell of a ride. Playing the game with the folder open beside it is fucking wild, seeing the fuckery as it happens (these txt files that pop up, omfg). Admittedly, this haunting, subversive, meta-narrative/meta-horror stuff is my shit. Probably the kind of stuff I'd create, because it's exactly the kind of stuff that scares the hell out of me, haha.
That was before and after the first "END". I decided to go with Yuri first, but I had saves ready for a Sayori route next and a Natsuki route after that. After Sayori revealed her depression, I felt really bad for her (hell, I related to an uncomfortable amount of it) and wanted to switch to her route immediately, but I decided since I was just about to get to the festival I'd finish that part of Yuri's route. That was clearly a mistake.Okay I started Doki Doki Literature Club and it's... good, actually. I'm not super far but I fucked up and got emotionally invested. Whatever is in store is gonna ruin me (rather, the fact I'm now acutely aware something of some sort may be in store is already ruining me)
Cosmicblizzard is right, it's gonna take the Grumps a while to get to any of the meat of this game. They should probably do 20+ minute episodes if they return to it after the first session.
Update: OH GOD NO, OH FUCK
Man, that content warning was not playing around. When I saw that image my stomach churned. I think it hurt more because I was actually starting to like the cast a bit, and I was so relieved after the pump fake when you visit her before meeting with Yuri. It just fucked me up more than I expected.
Then I started a "New Game" and saw the mess that awaited me. It was too much to handle at almost 3 in the morning (which it is again), so I decided to close the game and skim the Rock Paper Shotgun article linked in the Steam library page and saw something about file altering. I immediately stopped reading and rushed to see the contents of the game folder...
My mind was blown to fucking smithereens. That shit was WAY beyond my maximum fuckery limit for the day, so I promptly went the fuck to bed and tried to think of anything and everything but that until I could fall asleep. Today I tried to put on a brave face and returned to the game. I only barely made it past the 2nd "END." I'm honestly still too spooked to go much further, but I am compelled to see this experience through, becuase it is one hell of a ride. Playing the game with the folder open beside it is fucking wild, seeing the fuckery as it happens (these txt files that pop up, omfg). Admittedly, this haunting, subversive, meta-narrative/meta-horror stuff is my shit. Probably the kind of stuff I'd create, because it's exactly the kind of stuff that scares the hell out of me, haha.
I'm not sure if you're counting this or not, so just in case.
There is a happy ending of sorts, which only occurs once you've viewed the events for all girls:
https://youtu.be/pO9JT2Cc09E?t=19m53s
There is a happy ending of sorts, which only occurs once you've viewed the events for all girls:
https://youtu.be/pO9JT2Cc09E?t=19m53s
Man, I went in to this fairly cold knowing it was not what it looked like and I ended up playing though in one sitting. It hit all the right spots for me and is now sitting atop my GotY list. Now I'm trying to get people to play it but telling them they can't look anything up about it definitely sets off flags...
I'm going to start playing this game in the weekend after I'm done with my finals. All these impressions are getting me excited plus my friends have been wanting me to play this.
LOL I thought the recommendations where just jokes.
This whole "It's a good game, but I don't tell you why, find it out yourself"-thing reminds me of Undertale/Nier/Stanley Parable.
Is it in the same category of worthwhile experiences? Like by doing something weird/unexpected?
This whole "It's a good game, but I don't tell you why, find it out yourself"-thing reminds me of Undertale/Nier/Stanley Parable.
Is it in the same category of worthwhile experiences? Like by doing something weird/unexpected?
I'm still reeling from completing the game yesterday. Worth the blind no info playthrough. I knew it'd be odd but the way it all happens like dominos, such an awesome experience. The biggest WTF for me was during the end game when Monica
That really got me good.
freaking blurted out my freaking real name when referring to the actual player.
I'm not sure if you're counting this or not, so just in case.
There is a happy ending of sorts, which only occurs once you've viewed the events for all girls:
https://youtu.be/pO9JT2Cc09E?t=19m53s
Yeah, I've found this ending, but the sadness is still here. But it was an incredible experience. The only thing that I didn't try, is to...
delete Monica
You'll find out just by starting it up.
It's impossible to remain completely unspoiled because you get about a million disclaimers about depression when you start the game. Also the tags on Steam...
Seems like it, it's free and it's downloaded over 1 million at least, nothing else even comes close, Danganronpa V3 maybe but even then the previous games didn't hit close to that -in the west at least-
This is probably the wrong place to ask, but if anyone has VN development experience in here, do you think something like DDLC would be possible to make in Tyrano Builder? And I don't mean
stuff like files appearing and deleting themselves, I just mean glitchy effects.
Yes. There's an alternative ending which you could go for, and there's different unique events which can happen if you do certain things. But the game is really finished once the credits roll.
Question to anyone who will answer- I downloaded this, but the splash screen says to not play it if you suffer from depression and anxiety. As someone who suffers from severe depression and anxiety, is it advisable for me to play this?
Can't say I cared about it at all. We may have different opinions on what depression and anxiety entails and I'm not suicidal so YMMV.
Just blew through this for the first time in a single three-hour sitting. I don't know if it's a sign of sound mental health or serious depravity that I found the whole experience hilarious.
Everybody in the thread about this game hitting the million-download mark, which was what brought its existence to my attention and got me over the hump of going near an apparent dating sim VN, indicated that I should go in blind, which signalled to me right away that I was likely in for some kind of genre-subverting, fourth-wall-breaking metafiction that may or may not make sense to me as someone who only knows about dating sim VNs by their stereotypical reputation. (The content warning—not for children or the easily disturbed—signals to the player to be on the lookout for a twist as well, but given the actual events in the game I suppose it was rather necessary. It serves a dual purpose: the way the game is officially promoted on its download page, it's the only sign that something might be afoot.) But staying alert for that kind of thing didn't spoil the experience, and indeed I'm not sure I would have been able to endure the first act without the repeatedly signalled promise that all is not as it seems.
I did see most of the story beats coming and figured out the context as I went along, if not exactly how everything would be delivered, but that isn't a point against the game, and is indeed a sign of how well it embeds its foreshadowing and drops its clues in the dialogue and poems. The personalities involved are all very strongly defined.
Oh, nice find. Thanks for sharing.
Everybody in the thread about this game hitting the million-download mark, which was what brought its existence to my attention and got me over the hump of going near an apparent dating sim VN, indicated that I should go in blind, which signalled to me right away that I was likely in for some kind of genre-subverting, fourth-wall-breaking metafiction that may or may not make sense to me as someone who only knows about dating sim VNs by their stereotypical reputation. (The content warning—not for children or the easily disturbed—signals to the player to be on the lookout for a twist as well, but given the actual events in the game I suppose it was rather necessary. It serves a dual purpose: the way the game is officially promoted on its download page, it's the only sign that something might be afoot.) But staying alert for that kind of thing didn't spoil the experience, and indeed I'm not sure I would have been able to endure the first act without the repeatedly signalled promise that all is not as it seems.
I did see most of the story beats coming and figured out the context as I went along, if not exactly how everything would be delivered, but that isn't a point against the game, and is indeed a sign of how well it embeds its foreshadowing and drops its clues in the dialogue and poems. The personalities involved are all very strongly defined.
Naturally, like others here, I played around with the character files at the point where Monika points them out as accessible to the player to see what kind of events I could trigger with various combinations or how the state of the character directory might affect the game state, wherever it was saved. If I were really serious about this I would have dug into the Python code itself and actually hacked the game to see how the game state was read and events were handled (the hidden achievement in Invisible, Inc. trained me well to look out for this kind of thing), but I still wanted to approach this within the scope of a "player", and you're clearly meant to poke around in the character directory and see what happens. So I did see Monika's tearful exhortation not to bring her back after she deletes herself, which I thought was a delightful touch.
The similarities to Undertale are conspicuous, of course, right down to the persistent game-state when you quit and restart without saving (also reminiscent of a certain moment in Arkham Asylum), and I can see how this game taps into the same appeal. I find it interesting that there has emerged a sort of consensus audiovisual aesthetic of how to represent glitches and broken software, a broad idea of how to communicate the "look" of software failure to the player that is nevertheless deliberate and artificial.
I'll probably just look up the other endings instead of playing for them, though. I'm pretty sure the one I saw was just a standard one for a first playthrough: Monika deletes herself, Sayori takes over, Monika nukes the files. At no point did I reload the game from a save, although the game flags that as an option and nudges you towards it often enough that I considered this a likely mechanism for branching that the game would track and acknowledge.
The similarities to Undertale are conspicuous, of course, right down to the persistent game-state when you quit and restart without saving (also reminiscent of a certain moment in Arkham Asylum), and I can see how this game taps into the same appeal. I find it interesting that there has emerged a sort of consensus audiovisual aesthetic of how to represent glitches and broken software, a broad idea of how to communicate the "look" of software failure to the player that is nevertheless deliberate and artificial.
I'll probably just look up the other endings instead of playing for them, though. I'm pretty sure the one I saw was just a standard one for a first playthrough: Monika deletes herself, Sayori takes over, Monika nukes the files. At no point did I reload the game from a save, although the game flags that as an option and nudges you towards it often enough that I considered this a likely mechanism for branching that the game would track and acknowledge.
Oh, nice find. Thanks for sharing.
I casually combed through some of the files in my own run, attempted to see how the .chr files were encoded, and located a few easily spotted Easter eggs like the text in traceback.txt, but didn't dive into any of this deeply, and am glad somebody else did.
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Well it took me a bit over 4 hours to finish. A few glowing posts on another thread got me interested. Knew nothing beforehand, except that there was obviously a twist at some point.
Here are my thoughts on it (Disclaimer: I played only a few VNs before. Usually avoid ones that have the protag surrounded by girls of varying character archetypes like the plague).
I can't say I'm that impressed. Considering the whole meta game thing was done in more interesting ways before, this felt pretty tame to me. The writing isn't engaging enough either, and while it is short some parts of it felt like a slog. Understandable for the initial build up, not so much for the rest of it.
The exaggerated warnings are unnecessary, but it's kind of a smart marketing idea if intentional. The game doesn't explore any of the themes in a way that would have a serious impact on the player.
Visually it's unoriginal anime stuff. Even if it was done on purpose, there were plenty of chances to get creative with it, but nope. I'll chalk it up to personal preference.
Music is there I guess. I'd describe it as forgettable.
So to summarize, if someone is new to meta games or this type of narrative then I can see how it could blow their mind, and it does have a couple of smart ideas I'll give it that, but otherwise... kinda meh.
With that said, I look forward to Salvato's next project and definitely am thankful for the free game. Even if I didn't like Doki Doki, I absolutely support developers that try breaking the mold.
Here are my thoughts on it (Disclaimer: I played only a few VNs before. Usually avoid ones that have the protag surrounded by girls of varying character archetypes like the plague).
I can't say I'm that impressed. Considering the whole meta game thing was done in more interesting ways before, this felt pretty tame to me. The writing isn't engaging enough either, and while it is short some parts of it felt like a slog. Understandable for the initial build up, not so much for the rest of it.
The exaggerated warnings are unnecessary, but it's kind of a smart marketing idea if intentional. The game doesn't explore any of the themes in a way that would have a serious impact on the player.
Visually it's unoriginal anime stuff. Even if it was done on purpose, there were plenty of chances to get creative with it, but nope. I'll chalk it up to personal preference.
Music is there I guess. I'd describe it as forgettable.
So to summarize, if someone is new to meta games or this type of narrative then I can see how it could blow their mind, and it does have a couple of smart ideas I'll give it that, but otherwise... kinda meh.
With that said, I look forward to Salvato's next project and definitely am thankful for the free game. Even if I didn't like Doki Doki, I absolutely support developers that try breaking the mold.
So I have an important question...
Once Monika deletes the other characters, can I make a new game or am I stuck with Monika forever?